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‘Did you make the ornaments? Did you paint them?’

‘I’m not done yet.’

‘What will you do for the lords and pipers?’

‘The lords will be stars and the pipers will be thistles.’

‘How about the drummers?’

He smiles. ‘You know more about Christmas than you let on.’

‘I don’t.’ I take a step back. ‘I really don’t.’

‘You don’t know about it, or you don’t feel it?’

‘How would you feel Christmas?’

‘People get together, they share a meal, they give gifts if they want.’ He shrugs. ‘It gives me an excuse to make ornaments.’

‘They’re beautiful.’

He plucks ornaments from the tree. A rosella, a cow, a dove. He smiles as he holds them out. ‘Happy Christmas.’

‘I can’t take them.’

‘Why not?’

‘You wouldn’t have the right number of ornaments for the song.’

‘Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect.’ He searches for words. ‘Like I said, it’s a feeling.’

‘I still don’t get it.’

‘People are happier than usual. More patient, forgiving, generous. Christmas gives you reasons to give presents, which is why I want to give these to you.’

The rosella is pale pink. The dove is soft grey. The dairy cow is black and white. I take the ornaments out of his hand and hold them tightly in mine.

‘I’ll hang these in the cabin with the glass ball.’

A slight hesitation. ‘Did you recognise the snowflake design on the glass?’

‘It’s a fractal, a pattern formed by self-replication.’

‘What kind of fractal?’

‘Koch’s snowflake curve.’ I put the ornaments in my back pocket. ‘An infinite number of equilateral triangles. We studied it in science.’

‘Amelie …’ He’s closer than he was. ‘Don’t run.’

I’m frozen with indecision. I like him. I’m possibly falling in love with him. Maybe I always have been in love with him. My eyes go to his mouth and his go to mine and our fingers tangle. My heart thumps so hard that it hurts.

‘We didn’t argue today.’ My eyes are firmly fixed on his chest.

‘I like being with you.’

‘Maybe we were too busy to argue.’

He brings our hands between us so the side of my hand is pressed against the skin of his chest. I’m tingling all over and it’s increasingly difficult to breathe. I move my little finger backward and forward.